


Adjusting

by faithlessone



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 20:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6921892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlessone/pseuds/faithlessone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evelyn isn't dealing very well with the practicality of losing a hand. For entirely vain reasons. (Inspired by my best friend, who is also currently without the use of her left hand - albeit temporarily!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adjusting

It took barely three days for Evelyn to be completely over not having her left hand.

She stood on her balcony, grumpily overlooking the private courtyard. Cullen was down there, shirtless, sweaty, smiling, playing with Pup, and she couldn’t even appreciate it. Because a) she was supposed to be in bed “recovering” from her ordeal, and b) she was completely incapable of making herself look pretty enough to be seen in public. 

Getting dressed was almost impossible. It took absolutely forever to do up buttons one handed, and laces were entirely beyond her. Her hair was a tangled mess of untidy curls, and she couldn’t even put it up, because - who knew? – that took two hands. 

She almost wished she’d taken advantage of the ladies’ maid she’d been offered for her stay during the Exalted Council.

Almost.

She wasn’t sure she could take the addition of a simpering Orlesian girl fussing over her on top of everything else that had happened in the last few days.

Cullen looked up from the Mabari, catching her eye. Almost immediately, she wanted to disappear back inside. She was in such a terrible mood, it seemed unfair to inflict it on him when he looked so cheerful. Then she watched him order Pup to follow, and they both left the courtyard.

Minutes passed. She wandered back into the room, her brief entertainment over. The bed didn’t look as inviting as it had the previous day, so she dropped onto the sofa. She picked up a book, and then put it down again. Even the simple pleasure of reading was rendered infuriatingly difficult by the lack of a second hand. 

Then there was a knock at the door.

She stayed silent. If it was one of her people, they knew she was here, and they’d come in eventually whether she answered or not. If it was anyone else, eventually they’d give up and go away. Not that she was really expecting anyone. She hadn’t seen a soul other than the healer, Dorian and Cullen since she had stumbled, bleeding, out of the Eluvian three days before. 

Hopefully it was someone who’d go away.

But there was another knock, and another. Finally, she got tired of listening to the steady thump-thump on the door, and stalked over to it. She reached out to open the door.

With her non-existent left hand.

Which was enough to make her frustration boil over just that little bit too much. She yanked the door open with her (completely intact, but slightly less useful) right hand, ready to put the fear of Andraste into whoever dared to disrupt her moping with their incessant need to see her.

Cullen was stood at the door. With a big bouquet of flowers and a big bottle of wine, and a big smile. He was also, disappointingly, now wearing a shirt. 

Why he needed to knock, when they were his rooms too, she had no idea.

“You know you don’t have to knock, right?” she said, slightly more abrupt than she intended to be. His smile slipped just a little, and she felt terrible. They’d been married less than a week, and here she was, already being mean to him.

“Sorry.” There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice, and she reached out in her usual comforting gesture.

With her non-existent left hand.

Again.

She managed to stifle the yell of frustration that she wanted to make, but she clearly looked like murder, because he quickly pressed the wine bottle into her right hand and gave her a tight one-armed hug.

“It was some foolish idea of romance. I was going to… to pretend to be a secret admirer. It sounds ridiculous now I say it out loud,” he explained, haltingly. “I shouldn’t listen to Cassandra. Even if she is now supposedly Divine.”

Some terrible combination of her own frustration and the painkilling potions she’d been taking caused her to almost burst into tears at this revelation. Cullen managed to move her away from the door, pushing it shut behind him.

“I’ve done this all wrong, haven’t I? I should have given you your space.”

Space was what she wanted, but not from him. She told him so, her face half buried against his chest, and felt him sigh in relief.

“Cassandra insisted on the flowers too. Sorry, I know you’re not the flower sort of person. She said a secret admirer wouldn’t know that.”

Evelyn laughed, the first time she’d managed to laugh since she’d lost her arm. She lifted her head from his shirt.

“You still brought my favourite wine though,” she pointed out, holding up the bottle.

Cullen smiled. “I guess your secret admirer got lucky.”

He gave her one last squeeze and then released her. “Go sit down. I’ll put these… somewhere and then we can have some wine.”

Carrying a bottle of wine over to the table beside the couch was something she was capable of doing, at least. There were cups on the dresser, and she brought those over too. Cullen abandoned the flowers on one of the other tables, and sat down beside her.

“You’re frustrated, aren’t you?” he said, carefully, uncorking the wine and pouring them both a cup.

She raised the stump where her left hand used to be, and looked at him pointedly.

“Foolish question. But it’s not necessarily forever, you know.” He brushed her hair back from her face, smiling in a most infuriatingly tender way. “Josephine and Leliana have already begun devising plans, and Vivienne knows of a man in Orlais who specialises in making prosthetic limbs for mages. She believes he will be able work with you and Dagna to create a new hand that will respond as well as if it were flesh and blood.”

No wonder she had seen so few of her people since the incident. Bless them.

She must still have looked upset, because he leant forwards, brushing a soft kiss against her lips.

“Is there anything I can do now to make you feel better? Aside from the wine?”

There was only one thing she wanted, really, but… “It’s silly,” she admitted softly.

The most wonderful grin spread across his face. “If it would make you happy, I would do anything you wished. No matter how silly you may think it is.”

She reached up with her right hand, twirling one of the limp, unkempt curls around her finger. “Make me look like me? Help me do my hair, my make-up, help me put something on that isn’t a nightgown?”

He laughed, and for just a moment, she thought he was laughing at her. Then he kissed her again, deeper and sweeter.

“My love, if that’s what you want, it would be my honour.”


End file.
